Chapter 604

Li Long rode his bicycle to the department store again and bought some school supplies.

When children go to school, they are usually careless and lose things; notebooks and textbooks are the big items, which at most get torn or lose pages, but pencils and erasers are too easy to lose.

Or they get dismembered.

So Li Long bought some more, preparing to take them to the children in school tomorrow.

When he rode his bicycle back to the large courtyard, Sister Yang and Han Fang had already returned. Han Fang was cleaning the tools Sister Yang used to sell food, and Sister Yang was preparing dinner.

Seeing Li Long return, Han Fang greeted him with a smile, and Li Long handed one of the sets of stationery to her:

"Xiao Fang, this is for you. Pens, a ruler, an eraser, and a notebook. I heard from your mother that you did well on your final exams; that's very good, very good."

Han Fang wiped her hands on her apron, feeling a bit shy, and received the stationery solemnly.

Although Sister Yang had money now, Han Fang still had a thrifty nature, or perhaps the days she spent wandering had left too deep an impression on her.

"Her uncle is back." Sister Yang poked her head out from the kitchen. "We're making noodle soup tonight; is there anything you want to say, uncle?"

"Just pull them thin." Li Long said, "Xiaoxia's dad has a bad stomach, so eating thick ones isn't easy to digest."

"Okay." Sister Yang responded and went back to continue preparing.

These people who came to participate in the construction in the early days all had stomach problems to a greater or lesser extent. The main reason was that when they were back in their hometowns, they were basically hungry, and there weren't many times when they could eat their fill; after coming here, the work was heavy, but the food was provided in abundance.

Suddenly eating until they were full and stuffed, their stomachs were damaged. Usually, the work was tiring, time was tight, and the speed of eating was required to be very fast; digestion was poor, and the stomach was more easily diseased.

Li Jianguo also had stomach problems, which was why Li Long still kept a few wild boar stomachs when he hunted wild boars.

After putting things away, Li Long went to the living room of the master bedroom to clean his rifle.

Today he fired a few rounds in the mountains, hit the wolves, and also saved Halimu.

This made Li Long understand once again that the mountains now are not like the future, and those prairie wolves are not the internet-famous wolves that will smile and beg for food in the future.

These wolves will eat people!

So the weapon must be well maintained. In winter, you have to use winter gun oil to clean the rifle. He planned to bring some winter gun oil for Halimu and the others when he went into the mountains tomorrow, to avoid them using summer oil and then jamming at a critical moment, which would be troublesome.

Although the pack of wolves yesterday wasn't chasing Li Long himself, he truly felt that hunting in the mountains isn't just about ambushing and sneak attacks; sometimes you are truly facing a life-and-death situation.

Carry good weapons, be well prepared, and even if you don't run into anything, you won't be afraid.

If you really do run into something, at least you won't suffer losses due to lack of preparation.

After cleaning the rifle, Li Long checked the time; Gu Xiaoxia should be off work, so he strolled out to pick her up.

Since his wife didn't want him to be flashy driving the jeep, walking to pick her up should be fine, right?

Halfway there, he saw Gu Bo-yuan coming over with his hands behind his back, wearing a cotton hat; seeing Li Long, he asked:

"What are you going to do?"

"Going to pick up Xiaoxia."

"Not driving? Walking?"

"Yeah, Xiaoxia said driving is too flashy."

"That's fine, you go ahead; I'll stroll around here." Knowing that Sister Yang and her daughter were in the courtyard, Gu Bo-yuan didn't intend to go in right now.

Li Long didn't say anything either and continued walking toward the Education Bureau.

When he walked almost to the entrance of the Education Bureau, Li Long saw Gu Xiaoxia coming out of the gate, with two or three colleagues riding bicycles and saying goodbye to her.

When Gu Xiaoxia crossed the road, those colleagues turned their heads and took a look.

Then they saw Li Long walking over quickly, helping Gu Xiaoxia cross the road together.

"Why did you come?" Gu Xiaoxia hadn't expected Li Long to return so quickly and was a bit surprised.

"I came back early and went to buy them some furniture. Halimu and Yushanjiang's children are all in school, and it's not convenient for them to write on their kang tables, so I went to the woodenware factory and bought some small tables.

After coming back, I went to the department store and bought some notebooks, and I'll send them over tomorrow."

Li Long knew Gu Xiaoxia wanted to know about his situation outside, so he told her everything he could in detail.

He even told her about the fat sheep possibly not being enough and Halimu and the others going to other herdsmen's families to ask; he didn't mention the wolf hunting, fearing Gu Xiaoxia would worry.

"Then you have to leave early tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah, go over early; they'll slaughter the sheep, and I'll drive the tractor and pull everything I can; I should be able to get out of the mountains in the afternoon, and then pull the sheep to the Shicheng Sugar Factory. If there isn't enough time, I'll pull them back first."

Anyway, the wolf hunting wasn't for now, so Li Long wasn't in a hurry.

The two of them chatted as they walked, and soon they returned to the large courtyard; at this time, Gu Bo-yuan didn't know where he had walked out from and followed them in.

The smell of sour noodle soup was already drifting in the courtyard. The sourness didn't come from vinegar, but from tomato sauce made in the summer, and the taste was very good. With a layer of green leafy vegetables floating on top, it was truly very tempting in the dead of winter.

The green leafy vegetables were picked from the glass house in the back. Most of the vegetables in there could already be eaten. It was just that the chives were still relatively thin, having just sprouted, and couldn't be harvested yet.

Others like baby bok choy, cilantro, and celery were already at the stage where they could be eaten.

The green onions were also a bit thin; it would be at least the Spring Festival before they could be eaten.

Li Long planned to pick some in a couple of days and send them to the team. In this day and age, eating fresh vegetables was truly very rare.

After eating, Gu Bo-yuan refused Li Long's offer to send him off, took his flashlight, put his hands behind his back, and slowly strolled back.

It was a bit cold at night, but having just eaten hot soup noodles, his body was warm, and he wasn't afraid of that little bit of cold at all.

In Gu Bo-yuan's words, back then, at minus thirty-something degrees, those people lived in dugout shelters, coal wasn't enough, and they had never been afraid of digging for red willow roots and desert shrubs in the sand dunes in the dead of winter.

What was this little bit of cold?

Li Long thought to himself that he wasn't interested in hearing their glorious history.

Of course, he was actually a bit envious. The generation that founded the village could brag for a lifetime about the hardships they experienced at that time.

Even if they bragged until they were eighty, the younger generation would still have to listen obediently. In the future, the nearly 10,000 mu of fertile land in the Fourth Team was all reclaimed bit by bit by them from the very beginning.

Sister Yang tidied up the kitchen and took Han Fang to the side room, and then he heard her urging Han Fang to do her homework.

Now there were electric lights, so there was no fear of hurting their eyes doing homework at night; in Sister Yang's view, this life was truly a hundred or a thousand times better than before.

A letter came again from her hometown, still asking for money, and it didn't mention anything about her husband's address; Sister Yang's heart, which had always wanted to find her husband quickly, also faded.

She even lost the heart to go back and ask for the truth, feeling that living like this was also quite good.

In these two years, her husband would eventually go back once; even if her in-laws tried to hide it, the fact that she had come from her hometown to Northern Xinjiang to find her relatives couldn't be hidden. There were so many people in the whole village, so many mouths, it couldn't be hidden.

Unless her husband didn't want to inquire carefully.

Sister Yang planned to send another telegram to the village director. The village director was generally quite fair; she thought that if he knew her husband's news, he would reply to her.

Even if he didn't reply, she would write another letter; at least if her husband went back and asked the village director, the village director would tell him about her situation in Northern Xinjiang.

Having experienced many things, Sister Yang also understood. If she and Han Fang went back to their hometown, there was an 80% chance they wouldn't be able to come back. Her mother-in-law's family in her hometown wouldn't let her come out again.

It could also be that she was greedy for comfort; life here was really very good. Besides, Xiao Fang was already in school; could she go to school like this in her hometown?

With her father-in-law and mother-in-law's temper, it was impossible for them to let Han Fang go to school peacefully.

It could also be that her husband would find her and take her and Xiao Fang to his unit; then there would be peaceful days.

But Yang Xiulan didn't dare to gamble on this process in the middle.

The days at the moment were so beautiful; she was afraid that if she went back to gamble, she would lose everything.

Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia were watching TV in the master bedroom, continuing to chat about family matters.

"We have three days off for the New Year." Gu Xiaoxia said, "Will we stay here or go back to the large courtyard then?"

"Go back to the large courtyard." Li Long said naturally.

Gu Xiaoxia hesitated to speak.

"Wait until I finish the things in the mountains; I'll go back to the team before the New Year, clean up the old courtyard on your side, and then set up the stove and bake the room." Li Long continued:

"I'll pick up your dad and bring him back to the team before the New Year. This agricultural supplies store is our own business anyway; we decide when to close the door.

Although your dad has lived in the city for this period, he will definitely go back to the team for the New Year. After all, he is still a member of the team; I think he must also want to go back and live peacefully for a few days."

Gu Xiaoxia smiled.

Yeah, whether it was her or her dad, at least now they didn't completely consider themselves city people. The father and daughter still felt they were from the Fourth Team; after all, Gu Xiaoxia and Li Long had a large courtyard in the Fourth Team, and Gu Bo-yuan himself also had a courtyard in the Fourth Team.

Gu Xiaoxia believed Li Long could do these things.

Li Long's side was very peaceful at night, and everyone in the courtyard could get a good night's sleep.

But in the mountains, wolf howls echoed one after another near Halimu's winter camp. If it weren't for him coming out from time to time to fire a shot outside, Halimu would have suspected that those wolves would have charged over directly and rushed into the sheep pen to start a massacre.

Getting up early the next day, Li Long went as usual to set up the stove in the glass house, and after watering, he went to tinker with the tractor.

Han Fang still didn't sleep in; it was also possible that Sister Yang had called her up when she got up.

This made Li Long unable to help but mention it to Sister Yang when he was adding boiling water to the tractor:

"Sister Yang, Xiao Fang is on vacation now; let her sleep in in the morning. Children have it quite hard when they are in school; now that they are on vacation, let her relax a bit."

In the Fourth Team, Li Juan and Li Qiang could both sleep in; although they didn't sleep for long, at least they could wake up naturally.

"Sleep in for what?" Sister Yang disagreed. "This life is already very good; if she gets lazy, then in the future, she really won't know how to live a good life."

"Uncle Li, it's fine," Han Fang also had no complaints and explained to Li Long, "I go to bed early at night, and I wake up as soon as my mom gets up in the morning; I can't sleep anymore."

Alright, Li Long didn't say anything more about the mother-daughter relationship.

!.

He went to add boiling water to the tractor and took a few pieces of red charcoal from the glass house in the back to roast under the engine.

The fur coat and cotton hat were all roasting on the fire wall in the room. When Li Long was busy with things outside, Gu Xiaoxia had already set up the stove in the room.

The stove in the room was easy to manage; it was covered with charcoal when sleeping at night, and because the whole room was warm, the charcoal burned slowly; when getting up in the morning, you just poked it a few times with the stove poker, poked off the ash, added some broken firewood, covered it with coal, and the stove would soon burn.

Broken firewood and coal were both prepared by the stove in the room, so it was quite convenient to set it up.

After breakfast, Li Long sent Gu Xiaoxia to work, and after returning, he started the tractor, put on all his equipment, slung his rifle, and loaded the ammunition.

Han Fang and Sister Yang had already opened the gate; Li Long greeted them, shifted gears, and drove out.

The tractor drove out of the county town, "put-put-put" toward the west, and then south at the fork of Qingshuihezi.

The road surface was flatter, and with many people coming and going, the snow on the road surface was packed solid, so the tractor drove faster.

After passing Qingshuihe and preparing to enter the mountains, Li Long heard the wolf howls again.

He had always had something he couldn't figure out; could it be that some big beast like a tiger had appeared in the mountains and driven these wolves out?

That's not very likely.

After all, there had only been news of one or two tigers in Northern Xinjiang in the last ten or twenty years.

At the moment, he had collected one that Halimu had killed; there must be brown bears in these mountains, but bears hibernate in the dead of winter.

What else could have startled the wolves?

And he only saw wolves, not other wild animals, like red deer or the like.

Logically speaking, one should see more of these things.

When the tractor "put-put-put" drove to Halimu's winter camp, Li Long discovered that the winter slaughter had already begun here.

The Imam, wearing a chapan, was already chanting scriptures, the young people were slaughtering sheep and skinning them, and several old people were cleaning the sheep's internal organs, squeezing out feces, washing stomachs and intestines, and so on.

Li Long had seen a similar scene once before, and seeing it again this year, Li Long was still quite grateful.

The tractor "put-put-put" drove up to the winter camp, and Li Long got off the vehicle.

Everyone else had work in their hands, so they just nodded, smiled, and greeted him.

He had met most of them, or couldn't call them by name, but Li Long still smiled and responded to everyone one by one.

Halimu was piling up the slaughtered and cleaned sheep; seeing Li Long come over, he finished piling the sheep, walked over, pointed to the tractor's cart bed, and asked:

"What is this?"

"I got some small tables from the woodenware factory. And other furniture," Li Long said while untying the plastic paper on top, "The small tables are for Nasen and the others to do their homework, and you can look at the others and divide them up yourselves."

As soon as the plastic sheeting was untied, Li Long heard a burst of exclamations.

Clearly, this furniture had truly caught the eyes of these herdsmen.

Li Long had been to several winter camps. The furniture of these herdsmen was at least seven or eight years old, and most were at least ten or twenty years old, or even decades old.

As long as it could be used, they would continue to use it after repairing and mending it.

There were no carpenters in the mountains, so it wasn't easy to replace them.

Therefore, seeing the furniture Li Long had pulled over, the attention of both the young and the old was immediately drawn to it.

Halimu was about to speak when an old woman suddenly stood up, threw the intestines she had in her hand, and shouted a few words at the young people over there.

Li Long could barely make out that she was shouting for Talihaer, but he didn't understand the sentence that followed.

Then Talihaer, who was skinning a sheep, responded in a muffled voice.

Halimu translated in a low voice:

"This is Talihaer's grandmother; she said the few sheep she drove over are free of charge, she just wants that cabinet and a box. She told Talihaer he must agree, and Talihaer agreed.

His grandmother said the wooden boxes at home have all been eaten by bugs, and they are full of dregs inside, can't be cleaned, and can't be used. The cabinet is the same; it's been repaired many times and isn't stable anymore, so it must be replaced; this cabinet and box are very good, and she likes them very much!"

After Halimu finished translating, he asked:

"Talihaer drove over eleven sheep; is that enough?"

Li Long was sweating.

He smoothed out his tongue and then said to Halimu:

"Tell them that the money for the sheep must definitely be given to them. As for this furniture, it's a gift for you all.

I originally thought there might not be many people who wanted them, but now it seems there aren't enough. Tell them I will continue to send furniture over. Whoever needs what, just tell me, and I'll go to the woodenware factory to order them."

Halimu smiled and turned his head to translate for everyone.

Whether young or old, after hearing Halimu's words, they all immediately opened their mouths and began to speak.

They said a lot in a hubbub, and judging by their expressions, they were all quite excited.

Halimu smiled and translated for Li Long:

"They said they can't take your furniture for nothing. These sheep will be exchanged for the furniture. As for the things they need, after they finish slaughtering the sheep, they will tell you one by one.

They also told me that I must not let you suffer a loss. We Kazakhs cannot let our friends suffer a loss..."

Suffer a loss?

Li Long gave a bitter smile and said seriously to Halimu:

"Let me tell you, the price of all the furniture in this cart added together is only the price of seven or eight sheep; don't worry, I definitely won't suffer a loss."

"You want to buy furniture, you want to send it over." Halimu shook his head and said:

"In the dead of winter, the things sent over are at least twice the price, and it's not certain anyone would do it. Li Long, we don't calculate accounts like that, right?

You tell us not to just calculate the value of the sheep themselves; there are people who need meat now. You also have to think, now that the heavy snow has blocked the mountains, will anyone send things into the mountains to sell? By the way, there's also the ammunition..."

As soon as ammunition was mentioned, Li Long reacted and hurriedly opened his shoulder bag and took out the ammunition.

Halimu took the packs of ammunition and smiled.

Yesterday's incident was truly a humiliation for him; it needed ammunition and wolf blood to be washed away!

Li Long also took out the stationery and handed it to him, asking him to distribute it to the children.

He only knew that Halimu and Yushanjiang's children were in school, but Li Long felt there must be other families' children in school too; he just wasn't familiar with them.

The sheep slaughtering at the moment was like an assembly line; Li Long couldn't help, so he went to untie the ropes on the tractor's cart bed, took the furniture down, and placed it by the side of the winter camp.

Looking at the brand-new furniture, smiles appeared on the faces of several old women.

Li Long, on the other hand, was thinking about how to get the woodenware factory to make another batch of such furniture with ethnic characteristics.

After all, the master craftsman had retired, and he didn't know if they could be made now.

But thinking about it, if the quantity was large, the woodenware factory shouldn't refuse such an order, right?

At worst, he would go to Shicheng or other places to look. After all, the place was large, and he had a vehicle and a tractor, so there were quite a few places to choose from.

While he was thinking this, Halimu over there had already couldn't help but call two young men, take their rifles, and prepare to go hunt wolves.

Li Long followed; it was only while chatting that he learned that last night, wolves had already been frequently active in the vicinity. (End of chapter)